Democracy Now! (8/30/17)
The World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday announced that Hurricane Harvey’s devastation is linked to climate change. All past U.S. rainfall records have been shattered, and the devastating storm is expected to bring even more rainfall to Louisiana and Texas in the coming days. And yet, the corporate networks have avoided linking the record-breaking storm to climate change. We examine storm coverage with Naomi Klein, best-selling author of several books, including “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.”
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Ex-NASA Scientist James Hansen: There is a Clear Link Between Climate Change & Stronger Hurricanes
Democracy Now! (8/30/17)
Dr. James Hansen has been called the “father of climate change awareness.” In 1988, Hansen first warned about the dangers of global warming when he testified before Congress. At the time, he was the top climate scientist at NASA, where he headed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. We speak with world-renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen on what role climate change played in unleashing Hurricane Harvey.
Link to Story and 13-Minute Video
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The Red Cross Won’t Save Houston. Texas Residents Are Launching Community Relief Efforts Instead
Democracy Now! (8/30/17)
Hurricane Harvey has sparked comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans 12 years ago yesterday. The devastating storm killed more than 1,800 people and forced more than 1 million people to evacuate. Both the government and major aid agencies like the Red Cross were widely criticized for failing to respond adequately to the disaster. Instead, local residents took matters into their own hands, launching relief, recovery and mutual aid efforts such as the Common Ground Collective.
For more on the Red Cross’s failures and local grassroots relief efforts, we speak with Scott Crow, author and anarchist who helped found the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and Jonathan Katz, director of the Media and Journalism Initiative at Duke University and former Haiti correspondent for the Associated Press. He’s the author of “The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster” and a new article headlined “The Red Cross Won’t Save Houston.”
- Why Experts Say You Shouldn’t Give Houston Money To The Red Cross — And 5 Orgs To Whom You Could – News sites across the political spectrum, from Slate to the New York Times and Democracy Now! to Bloomberg, have published editorials in recent days detailing the reasons users shouldn’t give their hard-earned cash to the well-known and mostly-beloved charity. Their main evidence? The organization’s terrible response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006, the Haitian earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In an article published on Wednesday, Bloomberg noted that ProPublica has uncovered the ARC’s shady spending practices. … Read the Rest